Ex-Marine Vanishes After Combat 'Flashback'

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4272624&page=1

Relatives and volunteers -- some members of the military -- continued searching in Florida today for a former Marine who has been missing for a week and who may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Officials say 24-year-old Eric Hall took off on his motorcycle after experiencing what his family called a "combat flashback."

The bike was later found in the middle of a roadway in Deep Creek, near Fort Myers, on Florida's west coast. It was lying on its side with the engine running. There was no sign of Hall.

Hall, who was seriously injured three years ago in a bomb blast in Iraq, had recently moved from Indiana to Florida. He was staying with relatives on Sunday, Feb. 3, when he began "having flashbacks and walking around the home acting like he is shooting an invisible gun at people that are not in the home," according to a release by the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office.

"He had an imaginary weapon in his hand shooting imaginary people in the house," said Bob Carpenter, a Charlotte County Sheriff's Office spokesman.

[Bluerthanblue]

1. this is so very

sad.

and something that will keep becoming more and more common.

I hope for the best for this man, and his loved ones.

But as someone who knows PTSD, I fear the worst.

:(


peace~

[mike_c]

2. something about those "flashbacks" doesn't sound right....

I'm not trained in that sort of thing-- mental health diagnosis-- but think about what has to happen for someone to act out the events the OP describes. First, they have to be hallucinating the targets they're shooting at. That implies more than confusion about how to respond to real events, i.e. loud noises in the street, or angry interactions with other people. It means a complete break with reality. How common are hallucinations like that in PTSD cases? Put another way, most of us probably know a few people who suffer from some degree of PTSD, but how many of those sufferers shoot at little people on the stair? That seems pretty damned extreme. It's one thing to react badly to real stimuli, but quite another to hallucinate complex events that are not really happening AND TO INTEGRATE THEM INTO NORMAL, WAKING LIFE.

Second, the experiences the OP describes require that the Marine thinks his pretend gun is real, that is, that he experiences a real gun when he brandishes the pretend gun. But if he thinks the gun is real, why does he make shooting noises, etc? If the folks around him know he is pretending to shoot at imaginary assailants, then he must be ACTING like he's firing a pretend gun, rather than perceiving himself firing a real one in his imagination. The actions involved in pretend shooting are different from the actions required to fire a real weapon-- pretend shooting is stylized and symbolic, for one thing, and that's why people recognize it.

There's just something about this story that sounds really improbable given the facts that have come out. Maybe it's severe paranoid schizophrenia, not PTSD, for example.

[TheMadMonk]

3. Imaginary, not pretend. And I didn't find any reference...

...to him making gun noises.

A mind partially or completely disconnected from reality is perfectly capable of "filling in the gaps".

Most of us have heard stories of mother's losing a baby (particularly in traumatic circumstances or on top of an underlying mental fragility) who continue to provide full (but entirely imaginary) "care" for the corpse, an animal, an inanimate object or even empty air.

As for triggers they can be anything. Anything at all. A car backfiring might be the classic movie trigger, but it might just as easily be a child's cry or laughter; or a kitten's mew; the exact sound of a particular engine; the smell of burning meat; or a particular floral scent.

This sort of behaviour might be extreme, but there is nothing not quite right about it.

[mike_c]

4. well, as I said, I'm not qualified to say really....

Are you? If so, I'll certainly concede the point to someone more knowledgeable than myself!

[TheMadMonk]

6. Medically qualified? No. Aware of some of the ways a psychotic...

...break can manifest? Yes.

[EFerrari]

7. Psychosis can produce exactly the kinds of discontinuities

that you're pointing to. There is no through line except the paranoia. :(

[EFerrari]

5. God damn these people for not taking care of our veterans.

Who didn't see this coming? It's not f@cking rocket science. You usually CAN see it coming. You can tell when someone becomes less responsive or more stressed or a number of indicators that even someone like me can learn to monitor.

That kid better be in one piece. These stories make me madder than anything else. Because they are largely preventable.

Not only are our vets not getting care, they are being left on their own to manage what no one should be left alone to manage. :grr: